Wild Heart Read online

  Ase winced, knowing he’d been a jerk. “Sorry.”

  Dustin didn’t seem angry, though he wasn’t one for histrionics so far as Ase had seen. “You, Mr. Badass with his sexy beard and tattoos and his bike and your mysterious… thing.” Dustin waved his hand up and down like he couldn’t find the word. Ase rumbled a laugh at Dustin’s endearing quirkiness. “I have known you long enough to know you’re more than that. I mean, your little shows you do sometimes are enough to know you’re not what people would expect.” Dustin grimaced when he said the next bit. “But, dude, that today was scary.”

  Ase’s brows went up. “Scary?”

  “You saw that guy, and you were an open fucking book.”

  Ase scoffed. “He’s just someone I met once when I was traveling.”

  “Who happens to live in the random town in Texas you moved to? Out of all the med programs in, hell, not just the country, but the state.” Well, Dustin had Ase dead-to-rights there. The little fucker wasn’t as unassuming as those big green eyes might lead a man to believe.

  But Ase always had been shit at reading people. He had an ex in San Diego who would attest to the fact.

  Which didn’t make him feel much better about how he’d not given Jase a chance to recover that morning.

  “You looked like you’d found a puppy you’d lost ages ago.”

  Ase scoffed again, shoulders tensing and he turned to pull the vodka bottle from the cabinet above the stove. “Want a drink drink, or some water?”

  Dustin was silent for a long while. Ase almost thought he’d left the kitchen until he looked over his shoulder and saw the man studying him. “You know he works for my uncle, right?”

  Ase paused. In the silence after that, the sound of opening the soda mixer was loud. He poured his drink then turned back to Dustin. “What do you want me to say? I’m sorry for earlier. It wasn’t fair to you. I pride myself in being an ass but I’d prefer not to hurt anyone.”

  “It didn’t hurt me, Ase. But it did piss me off. If you want to make some old hookup jealous—” Ase went to rebuke that but Dustin continued. “And don’t lie to me and say that’s not what he is. You were too hurt. Scratch that, so obviously hurt by the closet-case blowing you off, that you couldn’t have done better than that.”

  “How do you know he’s a closet-case? And do you really think he was blowing me off? I thought I’d overreacted.”

  Dustin rolled his eyes. “First, as far as the closet-case thing goes, my uncle would have mentioned if he had a homo on his payroll. He’d have told my mother if nothing else, because she’s the Texas version of a Yenta and would have hung him by his balls if he hadn’t mentioned it, and a piece of ass like that got swooped up, and I hadn’t had first dibs.

  “I hate meddling in this because I’m gonna lose out on some grade-A dick if I’m right, but I sense some unfinished business.” Ase hadn’t been prepared for that, so the tea bag he’d been holding dropped from his hand with a plop into his mug.

  “Then don’t meddle,” Ase snapped. He hated being so short with Dustin, but he really didn’t need this tonight. Not ever. He’d ridden his motorcycle for miles and miles until he realized that wasn’t going to stop the burn of anger and humiliation… The thrumming need in his veins when he’d seen Jase.

  It’s not like he’d spent the last four years pining for the man. Their e-mail correspondence hadn’t lasted longer than eight months after their meeting before fizzling out. Yes, at first he’d ached to touch that strong body again, to rake his fingers over the buzzed hair on the back of that perfectly rounded skull just once more. And fuck it all if seeing Jase with his hair grown out so you could see the perfect gold color of it, his face having sharpened in its definition with age hadn’t made Ase hate he’d never get to touch him again.

  But Ase didn’t fawn over people. Ase didn’t need people. And they’d stopped talking for a reason. Ase was beyond a mess, and everything had blown up. After they’d brought Lizeth from Oaxaca, Ase’s need to cut off silly hopes and pipe dreams, overwhelmed his need to hear how Jase was on his happy homestead with his babbling brooks and beautiful girlfriends. “I assure you, he was a vacation fuck. I knew him a weekend and over a few e-mails. I was obviously an experiment. And it was ages ago. We’d barely even count as friends these days.” Dustin didn’t look convinced.

  Ase narrowed his eyes and rumbled in his chest, prowling toward Dustin. “And he’s not here, is he?”

  Dustin swallowed audibly as Ase crowded him against the refrigerator, his scent musky with a hint of honey, sweet like his pert ass.

  Dustin places his hands on Ase’s pecs, lowering them down his abdomen, tracing the new tattoos peeking out from Ase’s ribs as he went. He was breathing heavily, his tell. The man was a firecracker in the sheets. Exactly what Ase needed tonight. No more thoughts of silly, angst-ridden crushes from a time in his life he didn’t want to think on.

  Ase lowered his face, moving it closer to Dustin’s, rubbing his stubbly beard against Dustin’s cheek. “You want me to eat you out? To fuck you until you can’t talk, until you can’t walk tomorrow without thinking of me?”

  Eyes closed, Dustin almost closed the space between their lips. But he stalled. He opened his eyes, apology filling them. “Oh, Ase. I’d think about you anyway.”

  That made Ase flinch. Fuck.

  “This isn’t about him,” Ase said. It really wasn’t. His mind was whirling with thoughts of Dustin’s creamy white skin and his lush, perky ass cheeks.

  “The problem, Ase, is that even if it’s not about him, it’s not about us.”

  “Us?” Ase asked, taking a step back, his ardor cooling.

  “I know there’s not an us. Never intend for there to be. We have great sex. I know that. And we get along. But call me romantic, I hate for you to ruin something, or hide from something, even if it’s a long shot, by burying yourself in me. You, Dr. Ramirez, are more soft than you are hard inside, and I don’t want to be a crutch.”

  Ase reeled at the words. Fuck this man for thinking he knew Ase. Fuck him.

  Dustin reached for Ase, gripping his arm tight when Ase tried to pull it back. “Even if you don’t talk to him, don’t settle for sex from me because I’ll give you a second glance.”

  “I don’t think of you like that,” Ase said. And he didn’t.

  “I know you’re not that callous, idiot. But I know we’ve probably been doing this a little too long now.”

  Ase chuckled, letting Dustin see—probably the first person since Jase—that he’d read Ase right. Ase knew he was eighty percent bluster. Walls of steel and ice had protected him the last few years. But if Dustin could call a spade a spade, Ase could at least give him the benefit of honesty, even if it made him feel raw for the ten seconds he did.

  “There you are, Ase. And you should be with someone who you are okay being that Ase with every day.”

  “This is the nicest break up I’ve ever been through.”

  “Hey, I’m not saying no to one last dick-down, baby. Plus, you still have to do the photography for my uncle this weekend.” Dustin fluttered his lashes.

  Ase rolled his shoulders and boxed Dustin in, placing an arm on either side of the fridge. Dustin’s breathing grew loud again. “Ah, Dustin,” Ase said, deeply. “Gotta keep the artist happy.” And with that, he stopped all the sharing and talking the best way he knew how, placing a brutal, punishing kiss on Dustin’s lips.

  The next afternoon, Ase was all too happy to be finished with his rounds. He grunted a few goodbyes, gave Dustin a private slap on the ass, and left the hospital behind, happy to be free for two consecutive days.

  He’d gotten the better bargain than Dustin and his uncle in Ase’s estimation. Yes, he’d had to juggle one extra rotation more than usual, but that was nothing completely out of the ordinary. Dustin’s aunt and uncle got a photographer, whose skill level was that of an enthusiast rather than a professional, after a cancellation, and Ase got a couple hundred extra dollars in his pocket; a
few orgasms from a certain grateful nephew with a prize ass, free food and booze, and a weekend off. So he’d be taking photos of happy families and local politicians brown-nosing for a few hours tomorrow night. He liked taking photos and he might very well end up with a few decent ones.

  That couldn’t take away from the fact he had almost two full days away from the hospital. This would be the first time he’d managed that since he started med school. It was practically a holiday not to have to rush to work with a hangover for two days. That was reason enough to have gone through everything to get the time off. Though, he didn’t mind any of those other perks.

  After he’d arrived home, Ase decided to tune up his bike. Living in Texas, he’d learned a car was necessary as well, and had purchased a decent used car. But he’d put all his time and sweat and savings into replacing the bike he’d had to sell to pay tuition the fall out of his outing. He’d felt guilty, what with all the money he had to send back home, and he wasn’t making all that much. Regardless what people thought of doctors, he wasn’t loaded, and he had student loans to pay off—though, not as much as most, with his parents’ help and the scholarships he’d busted his ass to get in the beginning.

  He babied his new bike. Who needed a partner when you had a baby like this? He roamed his hands over the sleek, blue gas tank of Matilda II. Flashes of Jase doing the same, reverently admiring Matilda I on a noisy street corner one night four years ago assaulted Ase. He snarled and jumped to standing from the crouching position he’d been in.

  He was fucking tired. He’d been unnerved by Jase’s reappearance in his life yesterday, and he’d only seen the man for forty-five seconds. A mere blip.

  He had been unnerved by Dustin reading him like a book, again all because of Jase, who’d officially cracked him open for the first time in his life when he’d given himself to Ase.

  Ase had always been a bit on the rebellious side, despising the conventions and religious fanaticism with which his parents had raised him. They’d barely forgiven him for the first tattoos he’d gotten when they found out their dear oldest son would not marry his chosen bride. Then when they found out he was a homosexual… He still had scars from that day, inside and out. And one of those scars was from Jase being ripped away without the closure he’d wanted. And he despised that need inside him.

  Ase really hadn’t fallen in love or had some fairy tale notion of that night. It’d been a hook-up, an experiment for a straight boy and a farewell to Germany fling for Ase, as he’d told Dustin. But he’d let himself go for it, let himself be naked to Jase because something in those green eyes had been what Ase had needed then and there as he questioned his life. Jase had represented a hope, a wonder if he could love and give himself. He’d thought, as they rode down in that elevator, that maybe he could fearlessly love someone. Not necessarily Jase, but someone. Giving in, not fighting against everything for one weekend; being gay and free and wild with abandon had been nice. And he’d seen the same thing in Jase when he’d let go of his inhibition.

  But he’d had that taken from him. He’d faced the ultimate consequences. Made the worst choices. He felt like he’d been fighting even harder since then. Fighting to survive, fighting to stay in school, fighting to take care of the mess he’d made while hating himself.

  Damn, he was tired of fighting, and when he’d seen Jase, he felt that familiar freedom, like being tempted by an illicit drug, only to be told you couldn’t have it.

  “Get yourself together, man. Goddamn.” He shook his head and laughed mirthlessly at himself. And now he was losing his mind.

  He thought back on the words Dustin said before he’d left the night before, while dressing and putting on his sneakers.

  “You know, he may be at the re-election event Saturday.”

  “Who?” Ase was so fucked out, he’d honestly forgotten his name, much less what they’d talked about before they’d moved to the bedroom.

  “That deputy. Most of them will be there. Unless he’s working, that is. Otherwise, he’ll probably show up. You could at least…” Dustin shrugged and studied Ase in that way that stripped Ase bare, made him glad this was the last time they’d do this. “Get some closure.”

  “I got all the closure I need.”

  Dustin smirked. “You keep telling yourself that, Doc.”

  He’d never admit to the little bastard he was right. Ase had been around enough of them while working in hospitals to know any psychiatrist in the world would tell him he’d probably come to this godforsaken corner of the world to get closure with Jase Emery, to find absolution from all the bullshit he’d done since he’d last seen the man. Jase had been the last dream he’d had, or the last inkling of real hope, a final bright spot that he’d felt as a North Star. Maybe closure would help him sort himself out. Maybe it’d close that whole sordid fucking chapter of his life to get the goodbye he’d never gotten. One less thing just ripped from his hands and taken from his control.

  Chapter 10

  “WELL don’t you look handsome, deputy.” Jase looked over the hood of his truck at Lacey, who approached from her car, three spots down from him in the gravel lot.

  “I could say the same for you, ma’am,” he replied.

  “I hope I’m more pretty than handsome. Lord knows my daddy calls me his second son enough; I’m starting to think I may have grown a dick.” And wouldn’t that suit us both just fine. Jase smiled at the thought. She did look pretty, though, in a white sundress covered with bright, red poppies. They set off her tanned skin just the right way. Her hair was obviously straightened, pulled into a half-bun-half-ponytail thing Jase was sure had a better name than he could come up with.

  She straightened his hokey bolo tie when she reached him. “Your first time in the local version of dress blues?”

  “I wouldn’t slander dress blues calling this get-up such,” he said, drily. And damn, did he mean that. He’d not been happy when he was given the print-out that listed the dress code for county deputies at social events where they’d be recognized as such: blue button-down with khakis, a bolo tie, black or tan Stetson, boots, and to top it off, their actual deputy tin. Normally the tin didn’t look so “Welcome to Texas,” but with the bolo tie, hat, and boots, the tin star looked like a dude ranch costume. He wondered if he was expected to use a novelty accent as well. He’d rather have just worn his usual uniform of black slacks and black button down with its sewn on sheriff department logo.

  “I think the Sheriff’s wife made this up as she went for her photo ops.”

  Lacey laughed her honest, hearty laugh. No tittering, giggling princess here, folks. “I wouldn’t doubt that. You’d think we were a county that mattered the way she and the mayor’s wife have been carrying on the last couple years.”

  “Local pride,” Jase teased, giving a fist pump. That got him another laugh. She wrapped manicured fingers around his bicep.

  “Shall we, sir?”

  “Why, yes’m, we shall.” He was glad, now, he’d come with her. He’d decided he’d been out of bounds thinking she’d gotten the wrong idea again. Older and wiser, they could be friends now. She was thirty, not twenty-three anymore. He’d been so tense all day, stressing over getting Mama’s ramps put in after a night of tossing and turning, trying to decide if he should stalk Ase at the hospital so he could apologize for freezing up like he had. Repay the favor, more like it. He tried not to get lost in the same fantasy of four years ago.

  And thank goodness, he had a friend to make him laugh. He’d been trapped at that damn Ranch of Death by himself too damn long, he’d decided.

  They went through a white archway that had vines twining up the sides and tea lights placed in red-and-white checkered jars. There were a lot of people in the picnic area, formerly known as the back lawn of city hall. It’d been fenced in with a faux white picket fence. Tables were hither and thither, covered in the same red and white checkering, meant to look apple pie, all-American but with a touch of class, if the fancy candles and centerpieces w
ere telling. People weren’t out in typical picnicking clothes either, but their Sunday best. Not black tie, by any means, but definitely dressier than a family barbecue.

  “Well, they went all out, huh?” Jase asked, leaning into Lacey’s ear, catching a whiff of cotton-candy perfume. He didn’t comment on how much she smelled like a girl he dated when he was fifteen. He didn’t know if women stuck with one fragrance from high school on, or if her knowledge of such things ended at hair, makeup, and sundresses.

  “Yeah, I’m glad I wore the dress. I almost came in jeans, but I saw a couple of ladies at the salon getting dresses from the cleaners across the street and thought better of it.”

  Jase knew his eyes were probably wide as he took in what some would probably consider an over-the-top presentation for a small county’s local sheriff’s re-election picnic.

  Of course he figured it’d be a little more upscale since they had to dress so silly, and it was being held as the sun went down and into night, rather than just grills and Solo cups at the church. He scanned the area, noting a few coworkers he should probably say hello to.

  “Do you see what I see?” Lacey asked. He glanced at her, then off in the direction she was looking.

  He smiled and side-eyed her. “Booze tent,” they said, almost in unison, before making a beeline for the open bar—the only way the sheriff probably managed to drag half the people there out tonight.

  They were halted a couple times for quick hellos, handshakes, and tell your mama and them I asked about ems. Finally, they found their prize and Jase waited for a rum and Coke, and Lacey ordered a Malibu Bay Breeze. Within moments, the bartenders, dressed smartly in jeans and black button-downs, passed over the booze, and they both guzzled from their glasses, foregoing the dainty stir-straws.

  After coming up for air, Lacey wrapped her hand around Jase’s bicep again and looked out over the crowd they’d just emerged from. “That was exhausting.”